In an existing proposal for a face feature point detection method a face is detected in an image subject for detection, detection data of the face is employed to detect the eyes configuring the face, and the detection data of the eyes is employed in a face feature point detection method for detecting the inside corner and outside corner of the eye. In this method a learning discriminator created in advance using plural sample images is employed to detect the eye inside corner and the eye outside corner (see, for example, Patent Document 1).
There is also a proposal for a face feature point detection device that uses a corner detection method to detect intersections of an upper eyelid edge and a lower eyelid edge as eye outside and inside corner candidate points, cuts out a peripheral pattern at the detected candidate points, and calculates a degree of likeness to pre-stored templates of eye outside corners and eye inside corners in order to detect eye outside corner candidate points and eye inside corner candidate points of high degree of likeness as the eye outside corner and the eye inside corner (see, for example, Patent Document 2).    Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2007-213377    Patent Document 2: JP-A No. 2007-94906